


Space Madness

by scarredsodeep



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Drunk Jim, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1571384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones doesn't know if his daughter is alive or dead, and it's killing him. Jim can't stand it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space Madness

The first they heard of the crop failure on Cerberus was in the unfortunate form of a bombastic holoreel of the food riots. The news almost killed McCoy: first in rage, and then in sorrow. There was no word from his daughter. His desperate attempts to make contact with her went unanswered. And Jim Kirk watched as Bones, who had always carried himself like a doomed man, began to collapse under the weight of his grief.

Bones was not one to ask for help, nor to appreciate it when given. Jim tried to broach the subject one night, after a whiskey-scented dour-faced doctor had stomped angrily into his quarters, silent save for a few furious grunts as he spent himself inside Jim. Their unions had never been tender, exactly; and anger was often expressed between their bodies. But there was always before the warmth of their friendship, at least, to take the edge out of what they did together—to make it seem less like a transaction. Casual sex, that was all. It had started in the Academy, and waxed and waned not unlike the Earth’s moon. There were short periods when, insatiable with the hunger for it, they spent nearly every night together, and some afternoons too. Sometimes they would even sleep that way, side by side. And at other times months would pass without any wayward affection betwixt the two. This suited them both, usually.

But since the crop failure on Cerberus, since Leonard had coldly and grimly decided that his daughter was dead and he was the one responsible, what they did together was no longer convivial. Bones was there almost every night. They would silently, efficiently _use_ one another—there was no other word for it—and then Bones would leave again, gone just as fast as he could get his boots back on. It was cold, impersonal. And no matter how much Jim cared for the man, he grew tired of it. This was the first indication to Jim that it wasn’t, after all, just sex—once their tryst had been stripped down to that and just that, stark, utilitarian fucking, he discovered suddenly that he’d been wrong for years, thinking that this was all he wanted.

So he said to Bones one night, “We’ll go to Cerberus and look for her ourselves.”

Bones had whirled on him, instantly furious, quivering in a silent and terrible rage. Of course Captain James T. Kirk had already done all he could from afar, thrown around whatever influence he had, pestered the commanding officers aboard Starbase 16 and every contact he had even remotely near sector 1 for information, and for all his efforts was rewarded with only long, burdensome lists of the dead. Joanna McCoy’s name wasn’t on them. But the lists weren’t complete. How could they be? Starvation had taken many. Riots had taken more. And the Federation marines sent in to subdue the riots, well… The dead piled up. The situation on Cerberus was an embarrassment, a tragedy, and a mess. No one in power much wanted to talk about it with some young Starfleet upstart, and those who would talk had heard all the same rumors Jim had and none of the facts.

And Joanna wasn’t answering any of Bones’ messages. There were any number of reasons why she couldn’t be reached or couldn’t answer, especially with the infrastructure of the planet so unstable at this moment. But not even Spock could argue with Bones’ cold logic that one of the possible reasons was that his daughter was dead.

It wasn’t a romantic suggestion, although at heart Jim was a surprisingly romantic man, prone to grand gestures and self-sacrifice. It was a selfish one. His friend hurt, and that made Jim hurt. Bones was drowning in his sorrow and Jim couldn’t bear to watch his friend waste away. And, however regular, the sex was bitter, numb, not much good. Whether they found his daughter alive or dead, Jim knew nothing would help Bones but knowing for sure. Even if the knowledge killed him, it would be better for him to implode all at once. What he was doing now was unbearable to watch, to live with. His usual ill temper had been replaced with this black, dragging sadness. It had thrown the whole medical crew into a melancholy, and it was spreading.

So Jim said to Bones, “We’ll go to Cerberus and look for her ourselves.”

Jim didn’t know what he’d been expecting. But when Bones turned to him coldly, met his eyes for a long, terrible beat, and then strode out of the room without ever saying a word, Jim knew it hadn’t been that. Nothing could have been so bad as that.

* * *

After that, Bones stopped coming to Jim’s quarters. For a few days it was a relief. But as it went on, this too began to pain Jim more deeply than he’d have thought possible, just a few weeks before. And so as poorly as his suggestion had been received, Jim decided to do it anyway.

Using the warp drive, they could make the journey from their current coordinates to Cerberus in a matter of days or even hours, depending on what level of risk to nearby planets and flagrant abuse of the dilithium crystals was acceptable to them. That wasn’t the challenging part. The trouble lay instead in eschewing direct orders to stay clear of the Eta Lupi system and continue exploratory missions in an entirely separate sector of space. Historically, Jim did not have much of a problem with eschewing direct orders. But he _did_ have a history of having good reasons for doing so, usually on the order of apocalyptic catastrophes. It would be harder to justify, at his court-martial, why the consolation of a grieving crewman was more important than Jim’s training and mission and the burden of his command. It _was_ more important, make no mistake. But Jim didn’t know that he could put it into words, for his own satisfaction or for Starfleet’s. He wasn’t especially keen on telling the disciplinary committee _well, see, the sex had gotten pretty terrible_.

And if he thought the disciplinary committee would be difficult to reason with, well, he didn’t even want to think about what he was going to say to his First Officer.

* * *

Jim was not surprised when, with his usual lack of tact, Spock voiced his concerns for all and sundry to hear. The initial conflict between them had grown, begrudgingly, into a surprisingly close and open friendship: Jim found that they balanced one another out. Spock’s rigorous adherence to protocol, his cool, logical reasoning, his eye (and quirked eyebrow) for loopholes, his shortage of patience for speculation, and—yes—his emotional rashness were excellent complements to Jim’s own cheerful disregard of bothersome regulations, impulsivity, lawyer-like ability to bend rules without ever being seen to break them, his tendency to become unmoored in high ideals and utopian solutions, and—yes—his practicality. Together they were able to find solutions to every crisis that they’d encountered thus far, even though it came down to shouting more often than the Vulcan would admit. But no matter what they’d been through and what fondness Jim felt for the man, Spock was also possessed of a singular ability to vex Jim, and bring about the worst of his temper with a minimum of effort—with exactly the kind of utilitarian efficiency he was so fond of. Jim knew, had seen, had _felt_ , the friendship that they would one day grow into. He had even seen its potential to be something more. But he also found it hard to believe on a daily basis that _his_ Spock would ever grow as tempered and mild and controlled as Spock Prime. Or ever stop driving him crazy.

“Captain, perhaps it has escaped your attention that the route you have set us takes us more than two thousand parsecs off course?” Spock mentioned, with a furrowed brow yet every semblance of politeness, not five minutes after Jim had—cleverly, he’d thought—snuck the new coordinates to Sulu. Jim felt a pulse of immediate annoyance, quickly followed by relief that Bones, rarely found on the bridge under normal circumstances, had adopted a vigorous regimen of avoiding any place Jim was likely to be so that his sulking could go on unchallenged. (Jim didn’t mean to be impatient, or unkind. He knew that the pain McCoy was feeling was tremendous. But he didn’t approve of suffering just to make oneself suffer, of dwelling in pain when there was something one could do about it. He would always, always rather _do_ than _feel_. Whereas Bones had a proclivity towards wallowing and self-flagellation. And Jim _was_ impatient, damn it. He’d offered to help—done everything he could to help—and been spurned on account of it. And now he was obliged to sneak around and try to break regulations and defy direct orders to help Bones, _against the will of Bones_ , and—and it was more than a single starship captain should be expected to take, frankly. Jim was fed up with diplomacy and tact and being supportive of emotions. He was going to do something about it, Bones be damned.)

Jim gritted his teeth and steered his First Officer off the bridge and into the least-trafficked hallway he could find, Spock regarding Jim’s grip on his upper arm with alarm and distaste. Jim would learn to be more observant of the Vulcan custom against touching, Jim thought, just as soon as he stopped innocently getting on elevators or walking into storerooms only to be greeted by the sight of Uhura and Spock involved in all kinds of saliva exchange and—and _writhing_.

“I hardly think that was necessary, Captain,” Spock spluttered, cheeks flushing green with the indignity of it.

“And _I_ hardly think it’s appropriate for you to air complaints about my style of captaincy in front of the whole damn crew!” Jim snapped back irritably. He really was down to the last shreds of his patience, he reflected, a little embarrassed by how short his temper was these days. _Really, just really terrible sex_ , he imagined trying to explain to the panel of Starfleet officers convened to pass judgment on him.

For his part, Spock looked properly abashed. “Jim,” he said, voice tinged by concern and surprise in one of those minute shifts of pitch that managed to express volumes. “You know I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, I know.” Jim’s temper folded in on itself with little more than a defeated sigh. “You aren’t going to like this.” Might as well get it over with, Jim reasoned. “We’re going to Cerberus.”

As he often did, Spock surprised Jim. “Of course we are,” he said, giving the logical little frown he was so fond of. “But Starfleet’s going to notice the _Enterprise_ veering wildly outside of mission parameters. I was merely hoping we could discuss what we’re going to tell them.”

* * *

“What _kind_ of engine emergency?” Bones asked, expressing an encouraging amount of interest in the day-to-day at a terribly inconvenient time.

Jim’s mouth flopped open uselessly. “Well,” he said. “You see,” he said. There was a long silence.

Scotty broke in at precisely the right moment. “A perfect example of why I never bother explainin’ it to ye, Cap’n. Ye great louts in yellow never remember what it is I’ve said. Hurts a man’s feelings, when he takes his work as a point of pride.”

Bones, as was his wont, scowled from Jim to Scotty and back again before stalking off, muttering darkly to himself. “Almost acting like his old self again,” Scotty said softly. It was true. Although only essential bridge personnel and Scotty knew where the _Enterprise_ was really debarking and why, it seemed as if in some way McCoy knew, as if something inside of him could _feel_ that the line through space that stretched between him and his daughter was pulling him in, as if on some level he knew he was coming for her and this let him relax, just a little.

Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Jim found himself making a lot of wishes these days. He didn’t like it. The one thing he never wanted to have for Leonard McCoy—his chief medical officer, his _friend_ —was feelings. The thing with Bones was supposed to be a cure for feelings, in a way. Since the very first time he gazed out from the bridge and saw space, really _saw_ her, joy and sorrow had filled his heart in equal parts. Joy, because he was finally home. And sorrow because he knew he could never leave her. The _Enterprise_ was the only wife he’d ever have, her crew his only family. Anything he might feel for someone, any love that might grow between him and another, would only be a knife in his heart when he would unavoidably have to choose, and when he would helplessly choose the _Enterprise_ , and the final frontier, every time. It would break his heart to leave his terran lover, but he would be _unable_ to stay. Jim learned this about himself abruptly, wrenchingly, having never suspected it until it happened. He had read of this sorrow in ancient Earth texts in novels about sailors, men who were wed to the sea. And if a single planet’s sea could call to any man so strongly, imagine what entire galaxies could do.

Jim had heard it said that space was lonely. And he supposed it was, even for him. But it was a part of him, too, curled solemnly within his restless heart.

He’d lost interest in chasing women, after that. Men, too. He found solace in McCoy, because the path between their bodies had already been paved by drunken nights at the Academy. McCoy seemed as much a part of the ship as Jim was. And the thing with Bones had always seemed fun and light-hearted and safe. They were just _friends_. They were buddies. There was no risk of Jim doing anything stupid like falling in love.

Well, and he hadn’t, Jim told himself firmly. He had violated direct orders and made off with Starfleet’s flagship and sailed to some inconsequential star system to search for Bones’ daughter because of very, very good reasons that had nothing to do with love. Like _friendship_. And sex. Men were pigs, weren’t they? All they cared about was sex. So it was definitely the sex thing.

Jim groaned inwardly. He couldn’t even convince himself.

* * *

“What is this?” Bones asked gruffly as he stepped off the ship and into the spaceport, looking around. “Our mission has us nowhere near such a developed system.”

Jim, who was _not hovering_ , said too quickly, “Engine emergency. Needed parts. Had to go where the parts were, or we’d have been space debris.” He chuckled weakly, as if this would make it more convincing. There was no more need to lie to McCoy about where they were and why, but Jim had wanted to tell him privately. And then McCoy had bullied his way around Chekov—who under no circumstances should be instructed to guard _anybody_ —and off the ship before Jim had had the chance.

“What’s going on, Jim? I don’t like being lied to.” Bones looked Jim square in the eyes for the first time in weeks.

Jim looked around helplessly. Excited at the prospect of shore leave, even on a planet only just recovering from serious crop failure, the crew had dispersed into the crowded spaceport and the city beyond it almost before the _Enterprise_ had docked. He saw harried natives, weeping reunited families, marines. He saw brightly colored billboards, relief workers, travelers dressed in drab colors. He saw ships of all sizes and classes and crew of every race and nationality imaginable. He saw squadrons of reporters and even guiltily spied a few other Starfleet uniforms in the crowds. He saw the usual bustle and jumble of a good-sized planet’s major transportation hub, showing no indication of the hell that the people of Cerberus had been through. What he did not see were any excuses or lies to get him out of the present conversation.

“Jim?” Bones prodded, no doubt frustrated with the way Jim’s eyes were desperately scanning every inch of the spaceport save for the inches he occupied. It was the most attention Bones had paid Jim in weeks, and in spite of himself, Jim felt the thought warm him all the way through. “I’m a doctor, not a mind reader.” But his voice was soft, and Jim thought that he was exactly that. Jim finally met Bones’ eyes, and saw in them that his friend already knew exactly where they were.

“Welcome to Eta Lupi,” Jim said, spreading him arms in an attempt to be grand. “Now let’s find your girl.”

“Thank you,” said Bones, inclining his head, as grave a countenance as ever. He touched Jim fleetingly on the wrist as Jim’s arms came back down to show he meant it.

* * *

Joanna was alive. Not just alive, but exactly where she was supposed to be, safe in her bed in her aunt and uncle’s house where Bones had left her. It was the communications network that was a mess. None of McCoy’s messages had been received, and they hadn’t been able to send any of their own. They had starved—had endured hunger unimaginable—had lived for weeks on scraps of bread and scrawny local wildlife and boiled shoe leather—but had _lived_. There hadn’t been any bad riots in the area Joanna’s school was in, because there had been nothing to riot over. In silence and austerity, McCoy’s daughter had suffered. But she, and his sister, had survived.

Jim was sure it had all been a very touching reunion. He himself was enjoying an equally sentimental reunion with good old-fashioned terran booze. Though had Spock assured him many times over that on a molecular level, alcohol was all the same, whiskey tasted better from a planetside cask. And Jim had so much to drink to!

Really, Jim scolded himself, he didn’t know what he’d been expecting. That Bones would invite him to stay for dinner? Meet the family? After all, all he’d done was _get_ Bones to Cerberus and his daughter in the first place. He was barely _involved_.

Yes. Yes, he would have liked to have been invited for dinner. Or at least invited inside. He understood—or thought he understood, not having any children of his own—that Bones’ first priority, hell, his entire priority, was seeing and holding and assuring the health of his daughter. He could only begin to guess at the all-consuming gladness and relief. But after the preliminary frenzy of hugging and screeching and sobbing, well, Bones had turned to face Jim was this thin little girl in his arms, cheeks wet with tears and voice raspy with emotion, and what had he said? _I can’t thank you enough, Jim? Please, come inside, Jim? Let me introduce you to my daughter, Jim?_

None of these things. Bones had looked right at him and said, “Do you need a hotel, Jim?”

Jim had not been able to get away from the Withers homestead fast enough, after that. And Bones had seemed just as eager for him to go. And now Jim was feeling like an idiot at the counter of a nearly empty bar on a planet that had only just avoided total economic collapse, drinking alone and hating everything. Chiefly himself.

Because, however unfair, however irrational, what he kept thinking was: Bones didn’t want Jim to meet his daughter.

It was just sex, then. Exactly like he’d been telling himself all along. Maybe now he’d finally believe it.

The next time the bartender came by, Jim told him to leave the bottle.

* * *

It was three in the morning when the familiar grating chirp of the communicator yanked Leonard McCoy to the surface of his sleep, and then upright in his bed. The communicator was open in his hand before he was fully awake. At this hour, during shore leave, a call on this device could only be an emergency.

“McCoy here. What’s the situation?” Many years in Starfleet had trained him to shake off sleep in a moment’s notice. Yet Bones thought he must still be dreaming when the response came.

“Booooones!” Jim’s voice crackled, filling the spare bedroom with his slurred greeting. Bones blinked several times in rapid succession and shook his head, hard, as if what he was hearing was caused by some kind of cerebral misalignment.

“Watter yooooou doin,” Jim wanted to know. McCoy was forced to admit that he wasn’t dreaming.

“Keep your voice down, Jim, people are sleeping.” The admonishment came out naturally, without him giving much thought to it. He did have the habit of fussing over Jim like a mother hen. “You don’t sound well. If you haven’t been ill yet, you probably should be.”

“You’re the doctor!” Jim shouted into the communicator. This proclamation was followed by a fit of raucous giggling.

Bones found himself massaging his temples with his free hand. It was such an ingrained habit by now that he barely noticed it. He tried to remember the last time he had heard Kirk so drunk. Not since the Academy. And there had been some wild nights on shore leave since they’d been cadets. The captain was in a bad way. The last time Jim had sounded like this, McCoy seemed to recall, it had concluded with vomit in all kinds of unspeakable places. Including McCoy’s own pillow. “And you’re an idiot,” Bones muttered.

“Imma li’l drunk,” Jim slurred in a big whisper, like he was letting Bones in on a secret. “An’ I was wondering—‘cause I donno the area—where another bar issat. This one’s closing an’—” and unless it was a new quirk of the communicator, Jim actually hiccupped—“I donwanna go home alone.”

“Where are you,” Bones managed through gritted teeth, squeezing his forehead in earnest now.

“Atta—atta green place,” said Jim. Then he started laughing again.

Bones heaved a sigh that would have impressed saints and martyrs. “’I’m on my way,” he said. Just as soon as he figured out where the idiot was at. “Stay there!” he added urgently, imagining very vividly chasing Jim’s drunken trail all over the damned planet. He was a doctor, not a bloodhound. “In fact it’s best if you don’t move at all.”

* * *

By the time McCoy found him, Jim had been sick on himself and was babbling at the edge of coherence. He was also quite cheerfully unable to stand, and once he had McCoy to lean on, merrily began to stumble and sway, singing loudly. McCoy shoehorned him into the ridiculously overpriced taxi he’d commissioned. The worried-looking driver warned, “If he’s sick in here, it’s extra.”

Of course it was. “Are you out of your corn-fed mind?” McCoy muttered fondly as Jim collapsed against his shoulder, the better to sing directly into his ear.

“M’inna bad way, Bonesy.”

“I’ll say.” Bones tried to sound crabby, but the truth was, being dragged out of bed at three in the morning to rescue a disgraced and very vulnerable Jim Kirk would probably end up on his list of all-time highs. This was because Bones was a damn fool. “Where are you staying, Jim?” He hoped the captain had gotten a hotel room. Bones couldn’t very well bring him home to his sister’s place, where Joanna slept peacefully. Bones was finding that increasingly his being alone with the captain at all was inadvisable. McCoy couldn’t trust himself with a sober Kirk; imagine what he might do to a stumblingly, helplessly drunk one. No, not with his daughter in the next room. Who knows what he might do. Who knows what he might say.

“I hadda plan,” Jim confided in a very loud whisper. His lips brushed against McCoy’s ear. “See, I was gonna find a local t’take me home—” Jim leaned back and loosed a brilliant grin, which set to work immediately at undoing Bones’ resolve. “Hey,” he said coyly, as if it was just occurring to him. “It worked!”

Jim began to cackle. Bones considered briefly returning Jim to the docked ship, where he could put him to bed with an IV drip in the medical bay and leave him to Commander Spock’s tender ministrations. But even as he thought it he dismissed it as a bad job. He wouldn’t be leaving Jim with anyone tonight and he knew it. It was because he was a doctor, McCoy assured himself, that he couldn’t let Kirk—his patient—out of his sight. It had nothing to do whatsoever with Jim’s lascivious grin or his bee-stung lips or his impossibly brilliant eyes or stupidly rugged jawline. Or suggestively waggling eyebrows.

“Does this mean m’staying with you?” Jim was drunk enough to actually flutter his eyelashes.

Bones sighed again, helpless as he always was when it came to Jim. “On the couch,” he said firmly, for both their sakes.

* * *

Half an hour later Jim was looking quite comfortable in the guest bed that had been made up for Bones, the comforter pulled up under his chin. Bones had cleaned him up as best as he could—Jim was in a disruptive mood—but his uniform was hopelessly soiled. He’d left it soaking in the bath tub, which meant, unfortunately, a sanguinely nearly-naked Jim in his bed.

“S’too bad I didn’t vomit on my underwear,” Jim purred.

“Yes, then your sex appeal would be nigh irresistible,” Bones answered drily. He was situated on the floor, with a throw pillow under his head and a single afghan draped over him. Snug as a bug in a rug.

“Why didn’t you invite me t’stay?” Jim asked suddenly, a sharpness and clarity to the question that Bones found foreboding.

“This is Joanna’s home,” Bones said carefully. “You don’t expect me to introduce my daughter to everyone who’s been in my bed?” Almost as soon as the words left his mouth Bones winced, knowing how they sounded. He’d wanted to emphasize, to make clear in everyone’s mind, the casual nature of his affair with Jim. That’s why he hadn’t invited him in: because he hadn’t wanted Jim to think that _he_ thought that it meant something. Just thinking about it made his head ache. He didn’t know when casual sex had gotten so complicated.

But the truth was that it wasn’t casual.

The truth was, every nerve in his body blazed with his proximity to Jim. The relief of finding his daughter alive and well was overwhelming—had cleared his head enough that he could feel warmth and gratitude and aching affection for Jim. But the strength of these feelings was why he had pushed Jim away in the first place. When he’d been blaming himself and grieving, when he’d been weak and half-broken, he hadn’t been able to trust himself. What he felt for Jim was too big, too close to the surface, too desperate to be said. He knew that, in his weakness, he would reach out for whatever comfort he could close his fingers around, and that the look of confusion and slow horror on Jim’s face when he blurted out _I love you_ would have killed him.

Well, here he was, still warm from his daughter’s laughter and smiles, and it would still kill him.

“I don’t know how I missed the parade of your one-night stands traipsing through my ship!” Jim was not taking Bones’ glibness particularly well. Worse, he was sounding more sober with each passing eye roll. “Maybe you could set up a reception line, you know, so Joanna can shake all of our hands but it will only take a few hours—”

“Jim. Stop.” Bones said it quietly the first time.

“Really I don’t know how you find time in the day to satisfy your fucking _rogue’s gallery_ of casual lays!” Jim was getting louder.

“For God’s sake, man, I didn’t mean—”

“I guess I should be grateful you can remember my name, is that it, McCoy? To have had the _honor_ of being one in a long line of pieces of ass that you didn’t give a damn about?”

“WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?” The words exploded out of Bones at full volume. They probably woke the whole house, but at least they stunned Jim into temporary silence. “I didn’t want to try and explain our relationship to my daughter when I can’t even explain it to myself! I didn’t want to introduce you because if she asked me questions about what you were to me, I wouldn’t know what to say. I don’t know what we are, what this is, Jim. I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do.”

Jim had the decency to look abashed. He’d dropped his head onto his open palm, where he was rolling it around as if trying to massage the right words in through his skin. “You could’ve just introduced me as your captain,” he said quietly.

“But you’re more than that.” Once the words had hit the air, there was no taking them back.

Jim looked up from his hand, looking hopeful, the start of a smile just visible at the corners of his eyes. “What are you trying to say, McCoy?”

Bones felt prickly and gruff, which was the most like himself he’d felt all night. “Damn it, Jim, don’t make me say it.”

“I want to hear it,” Jim pressed. There was definitely a devilish gleam about his eye, Bones decided.

“I’ll feel ridiculous.”

“You’re _being_ ridiculous.”

“Fine! Fine.” McCoy got up and began to pace, trying to organize his feelings into words. “I care about you… very much,” he began lamely. He glanced at Jim to see how that was received. Not well, he deduced. “To tell the truth, you’re the only person I’ve been with in… oh, it’s been at least a year, now.”

“Not a lot of opportunities out in space, though, are there?”

“You seem to find plenty,” McCoy shot back sourly. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

Jim raised his palms in a gesture of peace. “Continue.”

McCoy heaved one of the colossal sighs Jim liked to tease him about. “I don’t know if it’s space madness or if it’s love, but this thing feels real to me.” He glanced at Jim again to check and see if he was allowed to stop yet.

Jim was shaking his head, lips knotted into a half-smile. “You’re such a hopeless romantic, Bones. Either space madness or love. Well, _I’m_ touched.”

Even though he only had the one pillow, Bones scooped it up and threw it at Jim’s head. He didn’t know why he even bothered with this insufferable man. “I’ll introduce you to Joanna in the morning, all right? If you survive the night.”

Jim laid back in Bones’ bed and patted the space beside him invitingly. He laughed as he did so, grinning beatifically. Bones could have just sat there and looked at him all night. It had to be space madness. “If you don’t,” Jim threatened happily, “I’ll tell her I’m a prostitute.”

In his daughter’s home, Bones didn’t dare accept the unspoken invitation, the place in the bed beside Jim. But he fell asleep with a smile on his face nonetheless, just from the pleasure of sleeping so near Jim, just from the gift of listening to his captain’s breathing.

* * *

Jim met Joanna miserably hungover at the breakfast table. She greeted him with a suspicious eye and incredulous hooked brows that reminded Jim so forcefully of Bones that he would have laughed, if his brains weren’t already oozing nauseatingly out his ears. “You weren’t here last night,” she said shrewdly. Eight years old and already showing her daddy’s most obnoxious traits, Jim observed grimly.

“Technically he arrived very early this morning,” McCoy told her, handing her a plate laden with toast and eggs as if it would end the conversation.

Joanna’s clear grey eyes barely flicked to the plate before they were back on Jim. For a girl who had supposedly been starving very recently, she didn’t seem very interested in food. As soon as he thought it Jim winced. He was an idiot. Could he _really_ be blamed for thinking careless thoughts when the whole world was so inconsiderately throbbing at him?

“I remember. I heard yelling. Where’d he come from?” The kid was relentless.

Bones glared daggers at Jim across the steaming dish of eggs in the center of the table. Their smell was having an unfavorable effect on Jim’s digestive tract. He slid lower in his seat at the table and tried to stifle a miserable, nauseated moan.

“I am a Starfleet officer and I will not be interrogated in this manner,” he protested feebly. “You haven’t even read me my rights.”

Joanna’s mouth twitched into a brief, smile-like expression before returning to a stately frown. She was _so_ like her father. Well, Jim had a special talent for making Bones smile; maybe he’d win over Joanna too. If he managed to not throw up all over her breakfast. It just _had_ to be eggs.

“Are you from Dad’s ship, then?” Joanna asked. “He’s chief medical officer on the _U.S.S. Enterprise_.” She stole a quick glance at McCoy for confirmation, and he gave a small nod. His smile was a small thing, but it made his whole face glow with pride. Even when the whole world was blurry and spinning queasily at the edges, Leonard McCoy was dangerously handsome.

“I am,” Jim said, trying to sit up straighter so as to appear more credible. “I’m the captain, in fact. Captain Jim Kirk. And you’re Dr. McCoy’s girl Joanna. Pleasure to meet you.”

Joanna considered this. She wasn’t stalled for long by introductions. Her eyes cut into Jim, as if she, like her father, could see to the very heart of him. “Where exactly did you sleep last night, Captain?” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “The couch isn’t made up and we only have one spare bedroom.”

“Joanna!” Bones blurted, face going ashen with mortification. Hungover as he was, it was all Jim could do not to laugh. He didn’t remember much from the night before, but he could glean enough to understand that this morning wasn’t too different McCoy’s worst nightmare.

“Told you it would have been easier to introduce us yesterday,” Jim murmured, raising a playful eyebrow at Bones. He decided to take a candid approach to Joanna’s full frontal assault and head off further awkward questions before she could ask them. “I had too much to drink last night, made myself sick. Your dad had to come get me and bring me back here. He gave me the bed because—” Jim had been about to say something designed to tease Bones, like _because I’m so pretty_ or _because he likes me so much_ , and realized at the last second just how wildly inappropriate such a comment would be. The hangover was not enhancing his conversational grace. “Because he’s a doctor,” Jim finished pathetically.

“I slept on the floor,” Bones volunteered forcefully. His face was a particular greyish purple color Jim had never seen on him, or anywhere, before. “Good for the spine.”

Joanna looked from Jim to McCoy. It was obvious she didn’t believe a word of it. Jim didn’t recall being so perceptive as an eight-year-old. Or so intelligent. Leave it to McCoy to have a brilliant little girl who wasn’t taking any shit. Staring very seriously at her father, Joanna pointed one finger at Jim, who was considering slipping under the table entirely as a viable exit strategy. “Dad,” she said reasonably, patiently, as if he and not she was the querulous child with inexhaustible questions, “is Captain Kirk your boyfriend?”

If Bones had been an amusing color before, he was now a masterpiece of an unexplored spectrum. Jim could no longer stop himself; even miserably nauseous with a migraine larger than some planets, he burst out laughing. Bones looked, if possible, even more scandalized, and stared at him in horror. Jim doubled over, slapping the table, making Joanna’s cutlery clink, and guffawed. He laughed with his whole body, taking great gasps of air, eyes streaming. It seemed to help with the nausea, at least. If laughing like this wasn’t making him vomit, nothing would. So _that_ was a relief.

“Sorry,” he gasped to Bones, holding up a hand in apology as he giggled and wheezed. “Really, I’m sorry.” The tide of laughter began to slow, but did not stop. “No wonder you didn’t want to introduce us! She’s sharper than you, Bones!”

“He’s not—” McCoy’s strangled voice was several octaves lower than usual, coming out as a growl. “He is nothing of the sort.” Under the table, he kicked Jim savagely. “Jim, stop laughing. You are not my—” Bones sputtered, not even able to say the word. This only made Jim laugh harder.

“I don’t think he would have brought you all the way here if he was just your captain, Dad,” Joanna said calmly, as if Jim was not having a hysterical breakdown one seat to her left. “Aunt Donna said you were on Cerberus against orders. And I bet plenty of your crew gets sick on shore leave without you running out in the middle of the night and tucking them into your own bed.”

“Well that doesn’t make him my boyfriend,” said Bones snappishly, and Jim was struck by the way Bones grew more childlike and sullen as Joanna grew more parental and chiding. Like everything about his current situation, this was hilarious. But even the ridiculous awkwardness of it all wasn’t enough to take the sting out of McCoy’s assertion. Jim remembered, hazily, asking Bones what exactly he meant to him. He didn’t remember any kind of satisfactory answer. Space madness, Bones had said. That he remembered. He did not recall it being much of a comfort to him.

Jim was hungover. Jim was delirious from laughing. Jim was at McCoy’s sister’s breakfast table on a planet a million miles from where he was supposed to be, eating eggs with a frighteningly clever eight-year-old, watching McCoy turn every color of the rainbow and deny that they had any relationship. And Jim decided it was as good a time as any to ask, “Well, what am I, then?”

McCoy’s mouth actually dropped open. The look he gave Jim was incredibly wounded, as if to ask how Jim dared ask such a thing when he was already under such heavy fire from his daughter. “I don’t—” McCoy spluttered helplessly. “Jim, I—” He looked to his daughter as if she could save him. “Jo—” He fell silent.

Joanna’s face changed, opening into a full, lasting smile. She put her hand on the table and squeezed her father’s arm, grinning. Happily, she said to Jim, “I think he must really love you.”

Jim looked from father to daughter incredulously. Bones was staring at the surface of the table, red-faced, his mouth twisted into—yes—a smile. Joanna had carved the matter at its joints with uncanny precision. She had seen the thing Jim had told himself he was imagining; she had pulled it out of the ether and named it boldly, over breakfast, as if it was nothing to be frightened of. And there was Bones, smiling stupidly, sheepishly, at the table, as if hearing it spoken aloud put his tortured soul at ease. Maybe it was the hangover, but for a crystal moment, Jim could feel the planets and the stars and whole galaxies of suns whirling around him at breathtaking speed. He could feel the way gravity rooted him to exactly this spot on Cerberus, seated between Joanna and Bones, as if this were the one place in the known universe he was meant to be. “Well, Leonard?” Kirk asked wryly, because it was stupid, it was agonizing, it was moronic not to know. He’d never imagined finding out might be as simple as asking. “Do you?”

Bones forced a scowl onto his face, covering up his giddy grin with effort. “It’s—it’s space madness,” he insisted. “I’m a doctor, I would know.”

Jim rose on shaky legs, made his way around the table. Joanna was watching them with keen, sparkling eyes. “Are you a doctor, Bones? I had no idea. You never mention it,” he was saying, but the teasing was peripheral, just comfortable patter to ease his approach. Space madness. The son of a bitch. Jim dropped to his knees next to McCoy’s chair and stared up into his narrowed brown eyes. He reached for Bones’ hand, where it laid in his lap, and clasped it in both of his, lacing their fingers together.

“I’ve got the space madness too, Doc,” Jim said earnestly, his voice soft as if he were expressing the tenderest of sentiments. And—in his own way, he was. “I’ve got it real bad. It’s been gnawing a hole in my chest, keeping me up at night. I’ve been having these sharp sensations in the heart. And the hallucinations—even when I’m alone in my bunk, I see your smile, hear your laugh. And I get these _urges_ —I want to drag you into empty med bays, or out-of-the-way engineering closets. I’ll be sitting there on the bridge, captaining, and I’ll just be swept with thoughts of you, with the wild urge to abandon my post and find you, wherever you are, and just stare into your eyes or listen to you gruffly proclaim all the things you’re not. _I’m a doctor, not your boyfriend_ , you’ll say. _I’m a doctor, not in love with you_. You can hear the crazy in my voice.” Jim was grinning now, Bones finding his scowl difficult to maintain. “You can hear how sick I am. The tragedy of space madness! Struck down in my prime! Do you think you can cure me, Doc? In your expert medical opinion, will I ever be well again?”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for you, Jim,” Bones said, stern expression giving way to a soft, dazzled smile. “It may be too late for both of us.”

Bones tilted his head down, his lips meeting Jim’s at first hesitantly, then with growing confidence. Jim kissed back with all the years of love and tenderness that had, unbeknownst to him, been building in his heart. It was a blissful kiss, full of space and stars and longing, a bright blazing moment that stilled all of time and space for the two men caught up in it.

Meanwhile, Joanna McCoy frowned at her breakfast and muttered, sounding very like her father, “I don’t think those are the symptoms of space madness.”

_end_


End file.
